The four will replace the crew that returned to Earth on Monday, along with the American astronaut and the two Russians remaining aboard the ISS.
Three NASA American astronauts Raja Shari, Kayla Barron and Tom Marshburn and European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Matthias Maurer left Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 9:03 pm Wednesday (2:03 am Thursday in Lisbon).
Arrival at the Crew-3 space station is scheduled for 19:10 Thursday (in Lisbon 12:10 Friday).
All four were quarantined at Kennedy Space Center, with the flight delayed several times due to bad weather and a “minor health problem” of a crew member, about which NASA did not provide further details.
This is the third mission to the ISS for NASA by the private company SpaceX, owned by the tycoon Elon Musk.
This is also the third space trip of American Tom Marshburn, who was aboard the Space Shuttle in 2009 and the Soyuz rocket in 2012-2013.
The rest of the astronauts go on a journey for the first time.
As part of the mission, several experiments will be carried out, including observing the effect of diet on the immune system of astronauts during a long stay in space.
The Crew-3 crew will also make a spacewalk to continue installing new solar panels on the ISS.
The space station will also host two tourist missions over the next six months.
Japanese passengers are expected to arrive first aboard the Russian Soyuz spacecraft later this year. EEI is expected to receive passengers from the Axi-1 mission, hosted by Axiom Space in partnership with SpaceX, in February 2022.
